The Poison Cupboard

by John Burke

  ‘These are matters of law, and it may be necessary for me to give you direction upon them while I am going through the evidence with you. This afternoon we shall go through the evidence together.’

  The court adjourned.

  After lunch, the jury returned looking as solemn and nobly resolved as they had done on the opening day of the trial. The end was in sight: the symptoms had been explained and argued over, the judge was going to help in indicating the diagnosis, and then they would decide whether the patient was to live or die.

  Mr. Justice Ember said:

  ‘It is now my duty to sum up on the evidence. A great deal of the evidence in this case is circumstantial, as the Crown quite rightly pointed out in the opening stages of the trial. Your attention has been directed to a sequence of events prior to the death of Molly Drysdale, and from that sequence you have been asked by the Crown to say that the cumulative effect of these events is so clearly indicative of the guilt of the prisoner as to leave no reasonable doubt in your minds that she was in fact responsible for the administration of poison to Miss Drysdale from which Miss Drysdale died.

  ‘The first question for you is: are you satisfied that there was atropine in the body? By that I do not mean a trace of atropine, but a dangerous quantity. Are you satisfied that the medical evidence offered by the prosecution is accurate and free from prejudice? Doctor Whiting has described the condition in which he found the body when called in by the landlord of the Royal Oak in Legacy, and has told us that at once he suspected, from symptoms which he described, that this woman had died from belladonna poisoning. Two recognised experts, who have no personal interest in the case, have testified that the amount of atropine, the basic poisonous ingredient of belladonna, in the exgurgitated matter was sufficient to form a fatal dose. The defence do not question these findings.

  ‘Now you must ask yourself this very relevant question: are you convinced, beyond the shadow of a doubt, as to who the person was who administered this poison? Perhaps I should put it to you another way. Are you prepared to say with complete certainty that the poison was given to Molly Drysdale by the prisoner?

  ‘The Crown say, and the defence do not deny, that the prisoner had access to such poison. The Crown also make the claim that the prisoner had the opportunity of administering this poison, and had a motive for so doing.

  ‘I must stress here how careful you must be in trying to assess this question of motive. Motive is not intention. Many people in this world have a motive for killing certain of their acquaintances, but this does not mean that they also have the intention of doing so. The fact that there seem to be compelling reasons why one person should kill another gives no legal justification for supposing that such a killing has taken place. You are entitled — indeed, you are morally obliged — when considering the motive for such a crime, to take into account as far as possible the character of the prisoner, as shown either by statements made in this court or on reliable testimony. In this case we have a reputable doctor, well spoken of in the district, known as a conscientious worker, who is declared by the Crown to have had the opportunity, means and motive for administering poison. It is claimed that the prisoner felt an unusually strong attachment to her brother and was looking forward to making a home for himself, his wife and his son when he came out of prison. The arrival of Molly Drysdale may have constituted a threat to all her plans, and she may have been apprehensive of the influence Miss Drysdale would have had on her brother when he was released. There may have been circumstances of which we know nothing: we have only the testimony of one witness in the hotel to the fact that the prisoner and Molly Drysdale were seen together, and that they appeared to be quarrelling. The prisoner, however, has assured us that she did not take Miss Drysdale seriously — that, in fact, she was so little impressed by Miss Drysdale’s threats that she actually forgot all about her for a day or two, and had no intention of assisting her in her scheme for procuring an abortion, and certainly not of murdering her.

  ‘It is claimed by the Crown that the prisoner made up a bottle of supposed medicine with a label bearing the name ‘Mrs. Swanton’, having arranged for Miss Drysdale to come to the surgery that day to collect it. This apparent medicine was actually belladonna, and the instructions as to the dose were sufficient to ensure that Miss Drysdale would take enough to poison herself. This she would do in the belief that the liquid, whatever it might be and whatever it might taste like, would bring about an abortion. That the unfortunate woman had the intention of attempting this criminal act is borne out by the testimony of her friend, Miss Gladys Bannister, whose communication to the police was a major factor in the instigation of proceedings against the accused. The more worldly among us may feel that no sensible woman would believe that a bottle of medicine would produce the desired effect, but in cross-examination Miss Bannister made it clear that such a delusion is — ah — not uncommon in the circles in which she and the deceased moved. Although the opinions of witnesses must not be taken as evidence, it is not unreasonable to attempt to form a picture of the character of the dead woman from various things that have been said throughout this trial. You are entitled to feel that she was an essentially unpractical, erratic woman — and a gullible one. She believed that medicine would rid her of an unwanted child; and that, of course, means also that she would drink even such an unpleasant-tasting liquid as belladonna without protest, in the belief that its very unpleasantness proved its efficacy.

  ‘It is confirmed by witnesses who have no personal interest in the case that Miss Drysdale left the hotel in Legacy in the late afternoon of the 4th of August, travelled by bus to Brookchurch, and later travelled back to Legacy. Either she took with her the bottle labelled ‘Mrs. Swanton’, which could have been left on the ledge in the waiting-room, or it was delivered to her later at the hotel.

  ‘It is the contention of the Crown that the prisoner knew of this proposed visit to Brookchurch, and prepared and labelled the poison herself or gave instructions for the bottle to be so labelled. For the defence it is said that the mother admits to having taken several bottles from the consulting-room and placed them on the waiting-room ledge by mistake. It has been established that she is long-sighted, and she has been unable to vouch for the names on any of the bottles concerned that day.

  ‘As to the alternative possibility, that of the bottle of poison being carried by the boy Gilbert Drysdale to the hotel, either knowingly or unknowingly, in the sense that he may or may not have known that it was poison, there is no supporting evidence for this. He declares that he left the poison on the bench and went upstairs with medicine for Mrs. Charlotte Swanton, and that when he came downstairs again he did not go into the consulting-room. His reason for not doing so, although he had been told by the prisoner — or so he said in evidence, and the prisoner has confirmed this — to remove the misleading label from the bottle and substitute one marked ‘Poison’, was that he felt suddenly frightened of the bottle. You must ask yourselves whether it is reasonable to suppose that a boy of his education should suddenly conceive a superstitious terror of a bottle containing a poison which could not possibly have harmed him unless he deliberately drank it. In doing so, you should bear in mind the irrational fears that do frequently strike children and adolescents. You may feel that the witness was telling the truth. Certainly no one has come forward to say that he was seen cycling into or out of Legacy on that afternoon. His grandmother has testified that she saw him about the house several times and that he would not have had time to get to Legacy and back.

  ‘The boy also insists that he did not know of the presence in the neighbourhood of his mother, who had registered herself at the hotel as Mrs. Swanton. When questioned, he has continued to maintain that ‘Mrs. Swanton’ meant, to him, in connection with the medicine, Mrs. Charlotte Swanton, his father’s wife, who was ill upstairs.

  ‘The prisoner, however, says quite plainly that she had told Gilbert about the appearance of his mother. Giving evidence on her own behalf, the
prisoner has said that she told the boy . . .’

  I wonder why I bothered to do such a silly thing? Laura wondered.

  She felt a growing distaste for her own behaviour. Not shame because she had tried to implicate Gilbert, but disgust because she had so signally failed to achieve anything. It had not been worthy of her. To kill for Peter’s sake, to alter other people’s lives, to scheme and contrive and impose her decisions . . . these things would have been permissible. But to fail, to make such a hopeless mess: that was unforgivable.

  ‘You may think’ — the judge’s voice flowed in upon her — ‘she is speaking the truth but not the whole truth, and of course it is open to you to think that she is lying. You may find it impossible to believe, for example, that a normally meticulous person such as the prisoner could, on this one important occasion, have been so negligent as to . . .’

  She withdrew her attention contemptuously. The result was, to her, no longer in doubt. The lunges forward of the argument, then its qualifying retreats, were turning the minds of the jury in one direction. The judge was expressing himself in his circumlocutory, gently cajoling way — ‘direction’, they called it! — in favour of a verdict of, at most, manslaughter. And by gently adding the factors of Gilbert’s failure to go back into the consulting-room, and Mrs. Swanton’s longsightedness, he was suggesting the possibility of a verdict of not guilty on either charge. Not guilty. With, she did not doubt, a very stern reprimand to her for negligence in allowing a deadly poison to be treated so casually. And then, no doubt, trouble with the B.M.A. would follow.

  No. She had been wrong. He seemed now to be swinging back in favour of a verdict of manslaughter, without the benefit of the doubt.

  ‘We do not admit the possibility of doubt in decisions made in this court,’ he was saying. ‘Prisoners are not given the benefit of the doubt. If there is any doubt — any reasonable doubt whatsoever — the prisoner is entitled to an acquittal. You must allow no consideration whatever, no haste or uncertainty or impatience, to influence you into returning a verdict . . .’

  She could not any longer bear this inexorable plodding, this ponderous movement towards what must in any case be a wrong decision.

  No haste or uncertainty or impatience: she tried to fix on that warning, but it was no use. She gave up. The need to speak came up in her throat like a convulsive cough that could not be denied.

  It came home to her with appalling clarity that she had, whatever happened now, lost Peter. She had failed. From lack of planning — even, she wryly thought, from the carelessness of which she had been accused so often during the course of this trial — she had made a gross blunder, and what it all led to was the loss of Peter. If she were to escape scot-free now, he would greet her on his return from prison with a mocking smile. Poor old Laura hauled up before her peers!

  Her peers. Those twelve imbeciles who had gaped at her, at counsel, at the judge, and at the ceiling for these interminable days.

  They had in some way defiled her. All of them, sitting in judgment on her, had taken liberties which she could never forgive. She fingered her cheek again. Its coldness had become a slimy coldness, as though the contact of so many prying, malicious human beings had left an evil film on her flesh.

  Whatever happened, she and Peter could no longer stay in the district. The fabric of her life and her work and her love for Peter was cracking. She could feel the crack running down the centre of her head, widening, every agonising moment. She was in acute pain.

  It was as though, she thought, someone had driven a chisel into her forehead and started prising the two sections apart. Then she laughed to herself. Had not she always refused to take seriously people who found similes for pain? If you had to describe pain, she had pontificated, it was not real.

  Then this was not real? No, it was not physical pain: it was impatience, fury, an overwhelming contempt. She was tired of the folly of the world. She hated all the stupid people with whom she had dealt for so long and who now had the impertinence to try and impose their legal rituals upon her. All the imbeciles who would not follow her medical advice, drink the medicines she prescribed, follow the regimen she had laid down for them in order to better and prolong their dismal lives . . . those who did not understand, those who presumed to stand in judgment upon her . . .

  Rage welled up within her and drove her up on to her feet.

  She did not hear what the judge was saying. She did not want to hear. Instead of talking, he must listen. Incompetence was something she could not tolerate. The thing must be set right. These bewigged actors must learn to play their proper parts, to get the scripts for the right play.

  ‘I won’t have it,’ she cried out. ‘For heaven’s sake let’s get the charge right. It’s not murder of Molly Drysdale, and it’s not manslaughter. You’ve got to start again. The charge is one of attempted murder. The attempted murder of Charlotte Swanton. Swanton, indeed! Too many people calling themselves Swanton who have no business . . .’

  The wardresses had seized her arms. She struggled wildly.

  The judge was saying: ‘I cannot tolerate —’

  ‘Who are you,’ she shouted, ‘to declare what you won’t tolerate? I tell you you’re hopelessly wrong. The charge should be one of attempted murder. Let’s start again and play fair . . .’

  The hands became like vices. She screamed. She could not bear the foul touch of these alien fingers. They left a slime on her that would not come off. For too long she had been handled, prodded, goaded, defiled by these plague-ridden creatures.

  In darkness and loathing she went on screaming and struggling, while a great weight seemed to bear down on her and weakness to invade her limbs until at last there was nothing but the darkness.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘You mustn’t let it upset you,’ said Mrs. Swanton. She had been saying it over and over again. ‘You’re not to let it prey on your mind.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Charlotte flatly.

  ‘You’re to forget it. She didn’t mean it. You know she . . . she wasn’t herself.’

  The skies outside were grey, and the wind across the marsh kept striking the house with dogged, insistent blows. Charlotte sat by the window. During the morning she had been seized by intermittent bouts of trembling which she could not control, but now she was beginning to get a grip on herself. The pleading note in Mrs. Swanton’s voice ceased to rasp on her nerves. She was able, now, to answer with a reassuring nod.

  ‘She didn’t mean all those things she said,’ Mrs. Swanton persisted.

  Of course Laura had meant them; every word of them. Mad or not, she had meant every word. But one could not say that to her mother: one could only deny it, keeping it at a distance and never mentioning it, hoping that in time the distance would grow greater and greater.

  ‘She only said it,’ Mrs. Swanton tried yet another variant of the same appeal, ‘because of . . . after she’d . . . broken down.’

  ‘Of course.’

  There was a silence during which each of them in her different way gathered strength.

  ‘She would never have said anything like that if she’d been herself.’

  Charlotte said: ‘It sounds queer, doesn’t it — ‘During Her Majesty’s pleasure’. As though the Queen got some personal enjoyment out of shutting somebody up in . . . in one of those places.’

  ‘It’ll all come right in time,’ said Mrs. Swanton resolutely. ‘We’ll have her back when she’s better, you’ll see. It will all be all right.’

  Doubt crept back into her eyes. To have Laura back, at some unspecified time in the future . . . would it in fact be a good thing to have her back?

  Charlotte wanted to move across the room and take Mrs. Swanton’s hand and kiss her; but that would probably start her off crying again, and Charlotte was not yet ready to cope with that.

  ‘Where’s Gil?’

  For both of them the thought was a distraction. Charlotte at once got up and went out into the passage. Like Mrs. Swanton, she obsc
urely felt that Gil ought to be with them.

  The consulting-room door was closed. She had a sudden vision of Gil shutting himself in there, taking poison, or blowing the house up. It was a silly, melodramatic idea: but then, there was nothing ordinary in life now; melodrama could lead on to melodrama.

  Before she could be snared in yet another agony of doubt and fear, she heard him moving along the landing above.

  He came slowly down the stairs.

  ‘Hello, Gil’ — her voice seemed to echo, as though the house were quite empty — ‘We were wondering where you’d got to.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  She waited for him to reach her, but although he came down and reached the foot of the stairs he seemed to get no closer to her. His face was set and unyielding. It was not hostile, as it had once been: there was no personal antagonism; but there was something even more alarming in his tenseness than there had been in his adolescent hostility.

  ‘Come on in with us,’ said Charlotte.

  He followed her, and at once Mrs. Swanton was on her feet, effusive and smothering.

  Gil said nothing. He shrugged off the awkward advances of the two women, refusing to be drawn into their company.

  ‘Are you going out for a ride today?’ asked Mrs. Swanton at last, helplessly.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  He went out into the garden. He would not go out on his bicycle now, in the public view.

  When he had gone, Mrs. Swanton said: ‘We can’t stay, can we?’

  ‘I haven’t thought of it. I don’t know.’

  ‘We’ll have to move away. Oh, dear . . . I do think it’s cruel.’

  They could, thought Charlotte, escape. Or she, at any rate, could, in due course. It would not be long now. With remission for good conduct, Peter would soon be free. The two of them could take up where they had left off, as though nothing had happened.